s, for New York is
rather new to me--we have lived West so much. You are all such
authorities on social matters that I shall have to depend on you for
many things. You'll help me, won't you?"

What women could resist such delicate flattery?

The four smiled graciously.

"Tell me, Mrs. Danielson," Mrs. Christy continued, "are you going to
Newport this summer--or haven't you decided?"

"Oh, we've decided! We've rented our house and we intend to spend the
summer in Switzerland and the Tyrol," answered Mrs. Danielson. "What are
you going to do, Mrs. Christy?"

"Jack and I expect to take an automobile trip through England and
Scotland--if he can get away," returned Mrs. Christy, "and by the way,
what do you all do with your houses through the summer months? That is
bothering me now! Do you leave your servants in them all summer?"

"Oh, no," exclaimed Mrs. Danielson hastily, "we have had such frightful
experiences doing that! One summer we had fine servants and we wanted to
hold on to them so we kept them in the house all the time we were gone
and we hadn't been back any time at all before they left in a body! So
pleasant to feel you'd only been giving a house-party for them!" she
concluded sarcastically.

"Why my dear, our servants had a dance in our house!" put in Mrs.
Norman.

"I always put a care-taker in ours," said Miss Thayer.

"Don't have a care-taker!" burst out Mrs. Cecil Jerome. "While our
care-taker was living in the basement, burglars got through our scuttle
and robbed all the upper part of the house!"

"You make a great mistake," said Mrs. Danielson.

"Don't you know about the Holmes Company? They have wired our house
every year since that experience with our servants--why, it's ten years
now! It is the only way to leave your house during the summer." I heard
the other day, said a handsome woman joining the group, "that, that
company had opened offices of their own all through the city this year
and they will not hereafter connect houses with the District Telegraph
offices, so you see their service is going to be a hundred per cent.
better than it has ever been before."

"You better wire your house, Mrs. Christy," said Mrs. Danielson, "you'll
feel perfectly safe then. An awfully funny thing happened to me when
ours was first done! Mr. Danielson neglected to have my signature on the
coupon and I came up from Newport and couldn't get into my own house! I
was raging at the time, but when I thought it